Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Found in Translation

Heretofore, my only experience with Google translate was a very funny game on the Coverville podcast where someone would run the lyrics of a well known song through the program into another language and then run it back, with the contestant then having to figure out that "quizzical emotions indoors/ I know not of their nature/ yet definitive/I wonder" were the first two lines of what famous rock song.

But I've been using it to translate local news articles, and I've found it to be pretty useful. You don't need to be perfect to understand what the Vice President means when he says:

Serbia needs to be modernized, and that must not be afraid of change.He stressed that he will not evaluate ministers from other parties, but it will indicate Dacic and Dinkic the poor results in certain areas of life.

And no doubt it's getting better all the time, just like the chess and Jeopardy playing machines.

NB, I made up the example above, but then I decided to try it. I actually found a Serbian translation of the song and ran it back into English. It's pretty recognizable

I feel inside (I can not explain it)

It's some kind (can not explain) I'm cold and hot (can not explain) Yeah, in my soul, yeah (I can not explain)

I said (I can not explain) Now it is good, yes, but (I can not explain)

Spinning in my head and I was moping What did you say, well, maybe it's true dream strange dreams, again and again I know what it means, but

I can not explain I think it comes to love I'm trying to tell you when I'm sad

7 comments:

That sounds like the perfect song for the game. I tried a couple that I thought would be fun but the translation was to good to make the question any more difficult than identifying the actual lyrics. The two I tried were Steely Dan Do It Again and Shake your Rump

That sounds like the perfect song for the game. I tried a couple that I thought would be fun but the translation was to good to make the question any more difficult than identifying the actual lyrics. The two I tried were Steely Dan Do It Again and Shake your Rump